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A- r> D E E s s 



OF THE 



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UNCONDITIONAL UNION 



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STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 



TO THE 



DPEOiPLE o:f Ad:^^i^-^x.^A^3sriD, 



September 16tli, 1833. 



PRINTED BY SHERWOOD k CO 

N. AV. Corner of Baltimore and Gay Streets. 



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PLATFORM OF THE U;JCO?^OITIOMAL UNION PARTY. 



GOLDSBOg^OliG^ A f^ D SEABROOK 

THE ONLY "REGULAR" NOMINEES! 



THE "DISORGANIZERS" EXPOSED! 



THE PRESIDENT'S POLICY ENFORCED! 



Emancipation tlie True Interest of tlie State. 



A Constitutional Convention Recommended. 



The State Central Committee appointed by virtue of a resolution of the 
Union State Convention, winch met in Baltimore on the IGth of June, 
and which, at its adjourned session on the 28d of June, nominated the 
Hon. Henry H. Goldsborough, of Talbot, for Comptroller, and W. L. W. 
Seabrook, of Anne Arundel, for Commissioner of the Land Office, submit 
the following address to the people of Maryland. 

The first Union State Central Committee in Maryland was appointed 
about the 1st of July, 1861. 

The appointment was made pursuant to a vote of the State Convention, 
which convened in the city of Baltimore on the 23d of May previovis. 

That Convention met, at the suggestion of certain loyal citizens of Bal- 
timore, to deliberate upon the perils of the times, and the course which 
patriots should unite to pursue. 

It had no official antecedent. It distinctly defined, in an address and 
resolutions, tbe position of the loyal men of Maryland ; made provision 
for the assembling of another State Convention in August following, to 
nominate a Governor and Comptroller of the State Treasury, and directed 
its President to appoint a Central Committee to arrange therefor. 

That Convention met under the auspices of that Committee, and com- 
pleted the work with which it was charged. During the canvass which 
followed, that Committee, with more or less of energy and success, directed 
the campaign. When it was over the Committee had finished its work — 



was "fundus officio." It was called into l^elng by an emergency, for that 
emergency, and none of those who were its godfathers imagined that it 
was to propagate and have perpetual succession, or that a Union party, as 
such, in the swift vicissitudes of the times, was to be other than temporary. 

After the Gubernatorial election of 18G1 it did no oflScial act, and had 
no recognized oflScial existence for a year and a half. 

In the spring of the present year, the Union men throughout the State 
desired conference and organization, that they might be able more effec- 
tually to sustain the National Administration in its great struggles, and 
the press, in various quarters of the State, suggested that some organiza- 
tion should take the initiative, as the Union men of Baltimore had done 
in 1861, and call a State Convention. 

The first formal expression of this desire was made by a mass meeting 
of the Union men of Allegany, held in Cumberland on the oOth of April. 
The resolutions of that meeting found a ready response from various quar- 
ters, and on the 27th of May the Grand League of the State of Maryland, 
as *' the only State organization of the Union j'xirty in existence,'^ issued a 
call for a State Convention, to assemble in the city of Baltimore, on the 
16th of June. 

This call was addressed to "all persons who support the whole policy 
of the Government in suppressing the rebellion," and the delegates 
elected under it were selected and voted for without reference to any 
known or supposed affiliation or membership with the Union Leagues. 

Meanwhile, however, by secret circular, a meeting hud been called at 
Barnuurs Hotel on the 14th of May It was attended by certain "con- 
servative" gentlemen from about half the counties of the State, the most 
of whom had a contingent desire for the support of the Government. In 
their deliberations they discovered the fossil State Central Committee of 
1861, and selected it as their instrument for effecting their purposes, and 
the President of the meeting "indulged the hope that the Chairman 
of the Committee would have no hesitation in calling the Committee 
together." The Chairman "did not f el justified in calling together the 
State Central Committee by his own summons, as their Chairman," but 
he convened the Baltimore city members of that Comnjittee, and those 
members agreed upon a call of the whole Committee. That Comn)ittee 
(more or less) met on the 28th of May, (the day after the Grand League 
had called a Slate Convention,') and adopted a resolution, which was pub- 
lished on the_ '29th, calling a State Convention to meet in the city of 
Baltimore on the 23d of June. 

Both calls were now before the people ; the result was as might have 
been supposed — the people were confused. Some counties elected to the 
Convention of the 16th, some to that of the 23d j^ some sent delegates 
to both. 



The Convention of the 16th met, pursuant to call, adopted a brief plat- 
form, which confessedly, even by many of thosa who support Mr. MaflSt, 
represents the opinion of a large majority of the Union people of Mary- 
land ; and to avoid, if posssble, any division in the Union ranks, appointed 
a Committee of Five to confer with the other Convention, and, without 
•making noininations, adjourned to the 23d of June. 

Both Conventions met, according to appointment, in different halls of 
the same building. 

As soon as the organization of the other Convention had been perfected, 
our Committee presented to it the following communication : 

" In pursuance of a resolution adopted at a Convention of the Union 
"party, called at the suggestion of the Union men of Allegany county 
" by the Grand Union League of this State, on the 16th instant, we were 
" appointed a Committee to communicate to your body the expediency of ad- 
" journing both Conventions, and uniting in a call for another Convention, 
"to be held upon some future day, to be agreed upon by committees from 
" each of said Conventions, for the purpose of nominating State officers for 
" the approaching canvass in this State. 

" In that spirit of harmony which prevailed in our Convention, we 
" tender you this proposition, in the hope that it may be entertained in a 
" similar spirit, and that a Committee may be appointed by your body to 
" unite with us in calling a third Convention, at such time as may be agreed 
" upon in joint committee, the action of which joint committee to be 
" reported to each Convention for approval or rejection." 

This conciliatory proposition was most ungraciously received by a 
motion to lay it upon the table, without even the courtesy of a reading, a 
large ujinority voting in the affirmative. 

A motion then followed "to receive and adopt," but tliis w;is amended 
60 as to provide for the appointment of a similar Committee with " power 
to confer." On the announcement of this Committee by the Chair, and 
before the members upon it had time to retire from the hall, it was dis- 
covered thitt a majoritj' of those named upon it were favorable to the 
proposition submitted hy our Committee ; thereupon a motion was imme- 
diately made " that the Committee be enlarged by the appointment of 
four additional members;''^ this motion prevailed, and their Committee 
was increased by four of their number vwst avoicedli/ hostile to compromise. 

Alter this action the result was easily foreseen ; all efforts at harmony 
were steadily declined, their Chairman refusing to permit a vote to be 
taken upon any proposition offiired ; and so ended the conference of the 
Committee of nine invested with " power to confer." They reported back 
to their Convention their " inability " to agree with our Committee ; sub- 
mitted resolutions which studiously ignored one of the most vital questions 
of the day, whether considered as to State or National policy, and recom- 
mended that their Convention at once proceed to nominate candidates. 



In vain did a member from Cecil urge, first, "adjournment without 
nomination ;" failing in this, then postponement for further reflection and 
consultation. 

The disorganizers were in the ascendant ; motions for delay were thrust 
aside, the resolutions of the Committee were adopted as embracing all 
that was necessary for State and National interests, and a ticket put for- 
ward with the full knowledge that by that act they divided the Union ranks 
icithoxd hojie of remedy. 

Before this step, so fatal to harmony and Union, had been fully con- 
summated, a number of their own members, including two of those who 
had served upon their Conference Committee, indignant at the course de- 
scribed, withdrew, and joined the Convention of which we are the rep- 
resentatives. 

Our Convention, finding every hope of Union defeated, and seeing 
the evident temper of the other body, resolved, unanimously, to nominate 
a ticket, and Mr. Goldsborough was put before the people almost at the 
same moment that Mr. Maffit was nominated below stairs. 

Our candidate needs no introduction from us ; his course in the State 
Senate during the past two years has earned him a debt of gratitude from 
the people of Maryland. 

To him was largely due the defeat of the infamous " Safety Bill," and 
other attempted treasonable acts of the Legislature of 1861. 

Mr. MaflFit, it was well known, was obnoxious to a large majority of the 
more decided Union men of the State, because of his published hostility 
to emancipation, in which he declared that " none but. slaveholders had 
any right to deal with the subject;" and because, also, of his avowed oppo- 
sition to a Conslitutioual Convention. 

Not content with the announcement of his views through the press, in 
advance of the assembling of either Convention, he has, since the adjourn- 
ment of both, taken occasion to discredit his own, by excepting in his 
pubU.-5bcd letter of acceptance any approval of the recommendation for a 
Constitutional Convention ; and sought to depreciate the other, while 
olfcuding the true loyalty of both, by selecting the columns of a disloyal 
paper to advertise that he " would not have accepted a nomination on our 
platform." 

The acknowledged pressure of that public opinion to which we offered 
to appeal througli a third Convention, and iu the face of which we have 
said Mr. iMaffit's uoniination was made, has constrained his Committee in 
their address into an attempt to create the impression, by artfully drawn 
statements, that the issue, as now made up between them and ourselves, 
is one between " those who expect at the proper time to approacli the sub- 
ject of slavery with a full view of its responsibilities," and "those who 
favor peremptory emancipation without regard to constitutional rights or 



reasonable convenience," wliile they are equalhj careful not to commit 
themselves or their jJorti/ to either. 

They were most careful to exclude "emancipation" from their plat- 
form, and they only indirectly refer to it to stigmatize it as a " subordi- 
nate measure of State policy ;" while it is no less true that a very large 
minority vote was cast against any mention of a "Constitutional Conven- 
tion" in their resolves. 

It is difficult to see, indeed, how Mr. Maffit can consent to stand upon 
the non-committal, evasive, no-policy address of his Central Committee, 
after his frank and positive avowals before and since his nomination. 

If either he or they can now be brought to favor the consideration of 
the subject, it simply proves how rapid is its advance when aided hj posi- 
tive candidates and progressive public sentiment. 

Fellow-citizens, we are no revolutionists; we advocate no " short-cut' 
to the extinction of slavery in Maryland. 

We disavow all measures for the violent abrogation of slavery in our 
midst. We claim that in the exercise of our prerogatives as American 
citizens, we owe it to ourselves to discuss fairly, and finally to dispose of, 
this evil; and we hereby solemnly declare it to be our conviction, that the 
dignity, the honor and the prosperity of our people alike demand that we 
should legally and constitutionally abolish the institution at the earliest 
period compatible with the best interests of the State, and the permanent 
welfare, stability and unity of the Nation. 

Since " the people know that the substance (of slavery) is already gone, 
and that only the skeleton has been left," we are of the opinion that the 
sooner the " skeleton " is removed the better it will be for the true interests 
of the State and the Nation ; at the same time we are fully persuaded that 
this can only be accomplished by at once bringing the people face to face 
with it in the election of such men only as are willing to discharge their 
whole constitutional duty by accepting their full measure of responsibility 
in calling a Constitutional Convention at the earliest moment practicable. 

We are admonished by the refusal of the last Union Legislature to pro- 
vide for taking the sense of the people in respect to a Convention that it 
will not do to take for granted, because a candidate is heartily in favor of 
suppressing the rebellion, therefore he will favor the earliest removal of 
its producing cause, or give to the people the opportunity so to declare. 

That men who seek to legislate in this crisis need first to emancipate 
themselves from the influence of the great disturbing interest is, we think, 
abundantly attested by the fact that the " Convention Bill" which passed 
the House of Delegates last year, and which was defeated in the Senate 
on the very last night of the session, contained a clause that the Conven- 
tion therein provided for should " not alter or abolish the relation of master 
and slave, as it now exists in the State." 



-8 

In presenting the nominees of the Unconditional Union party for the 
suffrages of the people of Maryland, we desire to have no concealment of 
our views or their own. We believe a manly, frank course is the best, 
and that true men will despise hypocrisy and subterfuge in this hour of 
the nation's peril, and recognize hostility to the Government, conceal 
itself under whatever garment of loyalty it may, or call itself by what 
title it may choose. 

Fellow-citizens, the men we present to you are in favor of supporting 
the Administration in every effort to put down the rebellion, and in every 
measure which it has thought necessary for the permanent peace of the 
country when the rebellion shall have been subdued. 

We believe that the only wny to put down the rebellion is, to put it 
down by force of arms, and for this purpose we are willing to vote every 
dollar necessary, and to give every available man, black or white. 

We do not think ourselves at all superior to our ancestors of Revolu- 
tionary memory, who fought side by side with colored troops, nor to 
Andrew Jackson, who commanded and complimented the colored militi i 
who fought with him at New Orleans. We believe it is the bounden 
duty of the President to use all force and every weapon which G'ld has 
put within his grasp, and the laws of the United States have authorized 
him to wield, in defence of the Nation. 

Traitors have no choice as to the weapons which are to be used in their 
destruction, and loyal men only ask that they be speedy and sure. 

Nevertheless, while we yield the right of the Government ti summon 
to the field every person capable of bearing arms, we hold that it is right, 
and shall invoke the assistance of the Government to recompense loyal 
masters who are thus deprived of services to which they are entitled by 
the laws of the State. 

A plain statement of our platform is contained in the resolutions of the 
Convention adopted at its last meeting, as follows : 

" Resolved, That the Unconditional Union men of Maryland ought to 
" nominate and vote for no candidate for Congress who does not avow hira- 
" self in favor of giving a hearty support to the whole policy of the Adniin- 
"istration, and pledge himself to enter and abide by the Administration 
" caucus for Speaker of tl)e House of Representatives. 

" Resolved, That the Unconditional Union men of Maryland ought to 
" nominate and vote for no candidate for the General Assembly who docs 
' ' not pledge himself to call a Constitutional Convention, to assemble at the 
" earliest practicable period. 

"Resolved, That the policy of emancipation ought to be inaugurated 
" in Maryland. 

" Resolved, That the Union men of Maryland are unconditionally such, 
' ' and in fuvor of the most vigorous measures fur the suppression of the re- 



" bellion and the restoration of the National authority throughout the 
** Republic. 

" Resolved, That there is no such thing in times of rebellion as sup- 
'* porting the National Government without supporting the Administration 
*' of the National Government, that the Administration of the National 
" Government is confided by the Constitution to the President, assisted in 
*' his several spheres of duty by the Admiaistrative Departments, and there- 
*• fore the measures of the President and the general policy of his Admin- 
" istration should, under the present trying circumstances of the country, 
** be sustained by all true patriots in a spirit of generous confidence, and 
" not thwarted by captious criticism or factious opposition." 

No Union man who desires to see the war prosecuted with vigor can 
fail to see the necessity of the organization of the next House of Repre- 
sentatives, so as to give its control to the friends of the Administration. 
In the hands of its opponents its power will be wielded to embarrass and 
cripple, not to support and assist the Government. 

Every act of Congress, like every resolution adopted by Union men 
who are such in profession only, though ostensibly in support of the war, 
will be accompanied by so many restrictions and conditions as to be useless. 

The true Union men see, while the present incumbents are in office, 
no distinction between the support of the Government and the support of 
the Administration; nor can they tell if the latter is suffered to be over- 
thrown by Rebel hands what destruction awaits the former. 

We avow ourselves openly in favor of a call for a State Convention 
We do so because the Constitution plainly requires the question of that 
call to be submitted to the people once in ten years, and because the inter- 
ests of the State loudly demand it. 

The President of the United States on the 6th of March, 1862, recom- 
mended to Congress the adoption of the following resolution : 

"Besohed, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State 
which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pe- 
cuniary aid, to be used*by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for 
the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of 
system." 

That resolution passed the House of Representatives on the 11th of 
March by a vote of 89 to 31. 

No representative from Maryland voted for it, and all who voted at all 
voted against it. 

The resolution passed the Senate on the 2d day of April, 1862, by a 
vote of 32 to 10. 

Both the Senators from Maryland opposed its adoption. 

It is certain that those votes do not represent the interest of the people 
of Maryland. 



10 

It is very far from certain that they represent any better the will of the 
people of Maryland. 

Three classes of people are variously interested in the response of Mary- 
land to the President's policy — now become the policy of the nation — the 
slaves, their masters, and the free people of Maryland. 

The slaves, though chiefly interested in the change, are not likely to 
influence the result. 

The slaveowners are not so keenly alive to their ov?n interests, as they 
have hitherto shown themselves, if they reject the President's policy. 

They are ofi"ered through the 'State "compensation for the private 
inconveniences" flowing from emancipation. 

They are about 16,000 in a population of 700,000— a small minority 
holding an exceptional interest which has ceased to be a favored interest. 

It was introduced by toleration; it has been protected by law; it may 
be extinguished by its repeal. Its historic origin is not a source of 
strength. The rebellion waged in its name exposes it to the fate of arms, 
and is an admonition of the uncertainty of its tenure, which few intelli- 
gent slaveholders can overlook, ' 

That henceforth the Fugitive Slave act is not likely to be what it has 
been heretofore no one who has appreciated the change in the temper of 
the Free States, wrought by the rebellion, can for a moment suppose. 
Without it there is no hold on slave property in Maryland. 

The triumph of the rebellion would prove more directly fatal to slavery 
in Maryland than any other result. 

The slaveholders must not suppose their rejection of the nation's offer 
will leave them where they are now even — still less restore th^m to their 
condition before the rebellion. 

Their choice is between that offer and worse ! 

From an industral interest which excited no hostility, but many scruples 
of conscience, slavery became a political power, and has so borne itself as 
to provoke, if not to deserve, intense hostility. 

It was controlling, domineering, dictatorial, exclusive and intolerant. 
Defeated, they who spoke in its name rebelled, and the rebellion has de- 
stroyed it as a power. 

It has passed" from a dominant and favored, to a discredited and 
depressed interest. 

In the face of such contingencies, before such arbitrators, the possessors 
of an interest which, in the minds of the great mass of the loyal people 
of the nation,' is believed to have inspired the rebellion waged in its name, 
are not likely to improve their condition by delay or opposition ; nor are 
they wise if they higgle on the terms ; and the height of impudence would 
be to suggest the value of the slaves before the rebellion as the measure of 
indemnity or the condition of their acceptance. 

The astuteness which should insist on such terms, in the assurance of 



.^ 



.11 

getting after failure what was offered before rejection, may outwit itself 
and loose both substance and shadow. 

The peckj^le of Maryland are not likely longer to submit the policy of 
the State to the dictation of the slaveholding interest. The free white men 
are the people of Maryland, who henceforth will dictate the policy of the 
State, and it is the interest of the free people of Maryland, especially of 
the free laboring people, that slavery should cease to degrade labor. 

The existence of slave labor is a disturbing element in our social rela- 
lations ; in our industry ; 'in our politics. * 

It creates and maintains a class of pretenders to aristocratic superiority 
over their fellow-citizens, which now splits into a thousand fragments the 
social system of the State, and subjects labor to the contempt of those who 
have negroes to work for them. 

It excludes the immigration of free labor into the State, and drives from 
it a very large proportion of its native sons, carrying with them their enter- 
prise, industry and education to swell the power of the West. 

It depresses the value of our lands by repelling the investments of the 
enterprising men of the Free States. 

It keeps our agricultural system below that of the neighboring Free 
States, by the wastefulness, sloth and indifference inseparable from labor 
without hope of reward or the impulse of bettering its condition, or any 
interest in the results of economy. 

Its influence on the wealth and. prosperity of the Stnte is shown by 
the difference between the free and slave counties ; the former north of 
the Sassafras and Patapsco, the latter south of those rivers. 

The free counties contained, in 1850, 980,147 cultivated acres, while the 
slave counties had 1,747,623 ; but the free lands were valued at $47,- 
851,615, while the slave lands were worth only $41,779,616. 

The farms in the slave counties average 143 acres each, worth $3,433 ; 
the free farms, averaging only 101 acres each, were yet worth $4,935. 

The free land was worth $48, the slave land $23, per acre. 

Thus is the relation of the Slave States to the Free States wonderfully 
brought home to our very doors, and made manifest within the narrow 
limits of our own State. 

The contrast is the more striking when we remember that the slave 
counties are the old, the free counties the new. 

The contrast is made still more remarkable by comparing the assessed 
value of taxable property in the free and the slave parts of the State. 

The assessed property was, at the last assessment, by the Comptroller's 
report of 1859, in the free part of the State $210,728,457 ; in the slave 
part of the State only $68,895,908. The free counties alone are assessed 
at $84,927,985! 

Its political effects are not less remarkable. When slavery was estab- 



12 

lished it was merely a form of labor ; its continuance or extinction was a 
question of politica;l economy alone. 

When it was endowed with political power it became an iastrument of 
ambition ; and the vast and unexpected extension of the cotton cultivation 
has made it an instrument of immense power. To emancipate the slaves 
is to destroy this power, and to do that is treason to those who rule by it. 

But it is not the owners of slaves only who rule by its power ; it is pol- 
iticians who own few or no slaves, who speak in its name, and subject 
the very owners of the p^-operty to their dictation. 

It is from this class of political adventurers that the rebellion has pro- 
ceeded ; it is this class from whom the most virulent opposition to eman- 
cipation will proceed ; and we shall hear them in defence of their instru- 
ment of power refusing the slaveowners the liberty of changing thoir slaves 
for United States bonds. 

This spirit of jealous domination has seized on the State Government, 
and, in the interest of slavery, has subjected the majority to the dictation 
of the minority. 

The Govern incut of this State consists of 22 Senators, 74 Delegates 
and a Governor. 

Each county or city sends a Senator, and the number of Delegates 
named in the Constitution. 

The State is divided by the Patapsco and the Sassafras rivers into a 
northern and southern portion, of which the northern is divided into eight 
counties, the city of Baltimore being on the footing of a county politically, — 
and the southern into fourteen counties. 

The Fouthern portion has, therefore, 14 Senators, a clear majority of 
the Senate. In the other branch it has 34, the northern 40 members of 
the House of Delegates. 

The southern portion needs only 4 votes, then, to give it a majority of 
the Delegates, and the control of the Legislature. 

Its veto in the Senate, if applied to measures of interest in other parts 
of the State, always suffices to secure the practical control, on measures of 
common and vital interest to the power or privileges of the southern 
portion. 

The white population in the northern is 385,643; in the southern por- 
tion 130,275; three-fourths, therefore, are in the North and one-fourth 
in the South of the State. 

It is this one-fourth of the people of the State who hold the majority of 
the Senate and the power to control the House of Delegates. 

In the North 9,041 white persons have a Delegate; in the South 3,831 
white persons have a Delegate. 

In the North 48,205 white persons have a Senator; in the South 9,305 
white persons have a Senator. 



13 

If we confine our comparisou to the rural districts, 3,831 whites itl the 
South, and 6,70-i whites in the North elect a delegate; and 9,305 in the 
South elect a Senator, which in the North requires 23,017. 

The ethnography of the State throws light ou the mystery of the patience 
of the North and the domination of the South. 

There are slaves in Maryland, and they are not distributed equally over 
the State, and power follows them as the shadow the substance. 

Maryland is a Slave State, but it is also a Free State. 

There are in Maryland 87,189 slaves. Of these, 72,912 are held in 
the counties south of the two rivers, and only 14,277 north of them. 

Five-sixths of all the slaves live in the counties having but one-fourth 
of the white population. One-sixth of the slaves are sparsely scattered 
among tlje other three-fourths of the white people. In the southern 
region there arc 56 slaves to every 100 whites ; in the northern region 
there are 4 slaves to every 100 whites. 

The North of Marylundis Free Maryland ; the South of Maryland is Slave 
Maryland. 

It has been careful not to allow the law-giver to pass from between its 
feet ! ! So careful has it been that, on the prescribed basis of any Con- 
stitutional Convention, the aggregate numbers of the House and Senate 
gives a tie vote ; for 14 Senators and 34 Delegates are equal to 8 Senators 
and 40 Delegates. 

The Governor is required by those who formed the Constitution to be 
selected from three districts in succession. 

The power which seized on the Legislature contrived by that division 
to secure an equally disproportionate share of the executive power. 

It constituted the Eastern Shore, all south of the Sassafras river but one 
county, one of the three districts, though it contains only 91,894 white 
inhabitants ; while the other slaveholding peninsula of 58,375 white 
inhabitants shares with the city of Baltimore and its 184,520 white 
inhabitants another third of the executive power ; and all the residue of 
the free counties, with their 201,123 constitutes the other district. 

The power thus enthroned in the Legislature of the State has perverted 
the whole legislation of the State to its perpetuation, its exemption from 
equal burthens, its influence in the National Government. 

It has seized on one of the United States Senators, and by law appro- 
priated him to the Eastern Shore — all but one of the counties south of 
the Sassafras intensely slaveholding — containing only 91,894 white inhab- 
itants, less than one-fifth of the people of the State, and already endowed 
•with one-third of the Governors. 

It has been careful to secure the foundations of its pdwer by declaring, 
in the Constitution, that the Legislature shall not pass any law abolishing 
the relation of master and slave as it now exists in this State. 



14 

That same Constitution directed the Legislature to take the sense of the 
people on a Constitutional Convention at its late session. But that would 
give the people an opportunity to strip the oligarchy of power, and they 
might see fit to do it. 

Before such a contingf^ncy all constitutional duty was silent. 

The forms of obedience were observed, but accident was ready to avert 
danger. 

A bill was reported, passed the House of Delegates, and was proceeding 
in the Senate, carefully postponed till the last night of the session, when 
it was in the power of its enemies. 

One of the oligarchy, from a county where the slave exceeds the white 
population, zealously moved amendments, and called the ayes and nays, 
till the President, pending the actual vote on the final passage, pronounced 
the Senate adjourned. 

This was on the \Qth of March ; the President'' s emancipation message 
had reached Annapolis on the Qth, and that was fatal to the bill. 

The Legislature of 1859, wholly in its interest, by law forbade emanci- 
pation of slaves by their masters contrary to the time-honored policy of 
the State. 

The same Legislature, at the bidding of the lowest instincts of the same 
interest, disgraced even itself by a law allowing free negroes to be reduced 
to bondage at the will of the people in certain counties. 

Nor has this power been at all above the most sordid abuses. 

It has exempted the slave interest from equal taxation and thrown on 
the land and the free labor of the State the burthen of supplying the 
deficiency. 

Other property is assessed, by sworn officers, at its value ; this interest 
is valued by law, according to the age and sex alone ; no slave is valued 
above §400, though before the rebellion he would have sold for 01,200 
or §1,400; and then the rate is so contrived that the average valuation 
of all the slaves in the State since 1850 has been §158, when the market 
value would have averaged three or four limes that sum. 

Even the administration of justice pays tribute to its power. 

The State is made to guarantee the slaveholder against loss from the 
criminal responsibility of his slave ; for the negro is property or person, 
alternately, as will best serve the interest of the owner. 

The negro commits a crime as a person, but by law the people of the 
State pay to the owner the value of the slave convicted and sentenced for 
crime, when justice required that the loss should follow the criminal- 
just as the owner of a vicious bull is liable for the damage he does, and 
is entitled to no indemnity for his destruction in self-defence. 

This unjust assessment is levied not on the slaveholders of the county, 
but on all the tax-payers ; and in.levying it the slave property itself does 



15 

uot pay in the proportion of its real value with the other property of the 
county, but at the rate of assessment lower than its value relatively to the 
other property which the slaveholding interest has been careful to 
secure it. 

Thus the very administration of justice is made subject to its exaction. 

To an interest so selfish, so grasping, so domineering, the people of the 
State are under no obligations. 

By our laws alone it exists ; their repeal is its death, and by their repeal 
alone can the people of Maryland seize and hold the mastery of their own 
affairs 

The liberal offer of the President presents an occasion which we ought 
not to neglect. 

The people of the State, therefore, have a clear and direct interest in 
initiating emancipation, and receiving, if possible, the bounty of the 
United States. 

It is important that a disposition to accept the policy proposed be mani- 
fested without delay, for the offer may be withdrawn, if it be ungraciously 
received; and yet, it is 2)luin, emancipation 7vill follow nevertheless. 

It is greatly to be regretted that the President's proposition should have 
met with so cold a I'eception from the repi:esentatives of the Slaveholding 
States. It is not the first time that their timidity has seriously jeoparded 
the interests of their negro-holding constituents. 

But that some of the representatives of Maryland should have voted 
against the resolution would be quite inexplicable had we noi so often seen 
the interests of the State sacrificed to the domineering spirit of the negro 
interest, which has for thirty years been organized into 'a machine for 
wielding political power, and which has, more or less, subjugated every 
public man of the Slave States to its will. 

^The Legislature which lately adjourned, under the dictation of the same 
interest, and on the motion of a person avowedly hostile to the United 
States, passed unanimously resolutions of the most menacing tone, touch, 
ing the emancipation of the twelve hundred slaves in the District of Co- 
lumbia on compensation to the holders — an act in which the people of 
Maryland have no interest, which adds only ten miles to her free frontier, 
and which the Constitution confides exclusively to Congress^ and which 
was necessary to give the guarantee of earnestness to the adoption of the 
President's proposition. 

These things alone can make intelligible the failure of the representa- 
tives of Maryland to support the President's proposal. 

If the people of Maryland see fit to adopt the policy of emancipation, 
those who voted against this proposal substantially say — the owners of slaves 
shall not be compensated at all unless the people of Maryland pay the 
whole indemnity ; the free negroes shall not be colonized unless the people 



16 

of Maryland pay the whole expense ; if inconveniences, public or private, 
be produjed by such change of system, the people of Maryland shall bear 
theui all, and their rich and liberal fellow-citizens of the Free States shall 
not be allowed to alleviate their burthens. 

That is certainly not the interest, the permanent interest, of the people 
of Maryland ; especially is it opposed to the interest of the free labor of 
Maryland. 

It remains to be seen if it conforms to the will of the people any better 
than it does to their interests. 

But it is certain that those votes seriously comproajise the success of 
the President's policy, and furnish grounds of opposition to that disingen- 
uous mass of astute politicians in the Free States who, for many years, 
have associated themselves to those holding the National Government in 
their hands, by an aflfected devotion to the slavery interest, which so richly 
remunerated their services. 

To this obsequious class are we, in a great measure indebted for the 
present rebellion ; from them we may expect the first efforts to coalesce 
with the rebels when they are overthrown, and to alleviate their fall and 
restore the old coalition for power; and e.«pcci.illy will they be swift to 
seize on the apathy of the central Slave States to defeat the liberal benev- 
olence of the President and his political friends. 

It is, therefore, important that it should be at once understood that the 
votes of Maryland's Representatives against the President's proposal are 
not accepted as|he real expression of the will of the people, but that the 
President's offer, so liberal, so statesmanlike, so peculiarly conformed to 
the permanent iYiterests of the people of Maryland, will be taken into 
serious consideration by them, and that the first occasion which tlie laws 
of the State afford for expressing their opinion will be seized to compel a 
declaration of acceptance of the President's policy. * 

Were the value of a slave greater than the same man free ; did the 
ownership of slaves elevate the master as much above free laborers as it 
does above his slaves ; did light and wisdom radiate from the region where 
they are held and darkness dwell where they are not, we might reconcile 
ourselves to a profitable domination, submit to a beneficent superiority, 
turn gratefully for guidance — moral and political — to the Source of all 
Light. 

But as these things are not so— as a slave is worth less than a free man, 
and the master is not above the free white laborer — as education and in- 
telligence prevail where freedom reigns, this domination is the most odious 
of usurpations. 

It is the domination of an interest over free men ; of property over 
people; of aristocratic privilege over republican equality; of a minority 
over a majority. 



17 

It has all the qualities of an aristocracy except its refineinont and ele- 
vation. It is arrogant, exclusive, selfish, tenacious, unjust, jealous of 
everything wiiich will not submit. 

It has for many years bound the State politically to the policy impressed 
on the Government by the negro interest of the planting States, with 
which the industry of Maryland has no identity, and dragged it away from 
its natural association with the great free labor States, whose manufactur- 
ing, mining, commercial and agricultural industry is identical with ours, 
requires the same laws, policy and protection, against which the planting 
States have waged incessant war for thirty years. 

It has ostracised every public man who refused to submit to its domina- 
tion and defend its power. No one has been able to maintain himself in 
public life anywhere in the State who has refused to give the watchword 
at its demand. 

If any ventured to revolt, the hue and cry was made against the traitor 
to this power, and no weapon was too foul to be wielded to his destruction. 

Originally treated by law and regarded by the people as an evil, moral 
and political, to be restricted till it could be exterminated, when it became 
a power its permanence and expansion were the conditions of stability ; 
and they who wielded the power turned all their energies to its con- 
solidation. 

The interests of the owner were then secondary considerations ; they 
were merely the instruments of ambition, to be sacrificed, if necessary, in 
the strife, from which it might emerge successful or iu which it might 
succumb. 

If it failed the owner lost his property, but that was the fate of war and 
of small moment to any one but the owner ; and he was taught to submit 
to the policy, because it was fur his ultimate good. The yoke was forced 
on his neck — he soon learned to bear it, meekly first, then proudly. 

The slave interest now excludes free white labor from the farms of the 
slaveholding countiefe ; and the masters profit by the exclusion, at the ex- 
pense of both the free white laborer and of the smaller landowner, who 
are dependent on the slaveholding monopoly for muiih of their labor. 

More labor is needed, but white labor shrinks from contact with slave 
labor ; and the masteVs have an interest in repelling it ; and they succeed 
by making free labor hold the level of the slave. 

This slave competition is the only dangerous competition. It has already 
sacrificed free labor to its domination; and its destruction is the surest way 
to promote the interests- of free labor. Its intelligence, activity, economy, 
will ensure its supremacy, so soon as the ban of the slaveholders' contempt 
and the monopoly of the slaveholders' interest are removed. 

They who despise free labor and insolently place free mechanics on the 
footing of their slaves will be the first to prejudice the men of the me- 



18 

chanical classes against emancipation, by suggesting that it means negro 
equality, social equality, political privileges, negro competition with white 
labor; they will talk of the laziness and dishonesty of free negroes; their 
swarming into the cities for theft and bsfgary. At least, they will say, 
let emancipation be not adopted without colonization. 

But do they consider free labor now above slave labor ? Do they not 
look down on it with contempt? Has this not always been avowed by 
their confederates in Congress ? 

Are there not now more free negroes than slaves in Milryland, yet they 
have neither social nor political equality. 

The slave interest tells free labor to oppose emancipation because it 
brings negro labor into competition with white labor. 

The very object of emancipation is to end that competition in its most 
powerful and only dangerous form — the competition of negro labor held 
by masters, and brought into competition with white labor for the benefit 
of the masters. 

What will the competition of the negroes — freed, divided, ignorant, 
dependent, without capital, without political influence — be in comparison 
with the competition of the master owning tliose negroes, forming a 
monopoly of nearly all the agricultural labor of the Southern counties, an 
oligarchy controlling the policy of the State for the promotion of their 
slave interest at the expense of the free labor of the State. 

It is to be expected that the power possessed of the Government of the 
State will not yield without a struggle. The evil spirit will not come forth 
without tearing the victim it has so long possessed. The incarnation of 
deraagogueism, it will display all its arts in defence of its power ; and they 
•who wish to assert against it the principles of llepublican liberty and 
sound political economy must not be slow to recognize the Proteus in his 
disguises. 

Its views preside over the political domination whose organization is 
now the Constitution of the State. 

Its principles inspire the sympathy with the rebellion which disgrace 
and discredit the State,' defiled it with the blood of the 19th of April, so 
nearly plunged us into the gulf where Virginia now writhes, and even 
made the Legislature, elected by the loyal men of Maryland, dumb 
before the rebellion it was charged to brand and punish, yet prompt to 
menace the Government if it exerted its undoubted prerogative to remove 
slavery froju the District, and bold to prolong the power of the oligarchy 
by defeating the bill for a Constitutional Convention. 

The slavoholding interest, if consulted and left free, would not have 
rebelled ; but it was imbued with the principles inculcated by its political 
leaders, and when they acted the slaveholders had no ground of resistance. 

They yielded reluctantly, and then covered their reluctance by zeal, 



19 

and sought to strengthen their interests by a devotion to a course which 
has been their ruin. 

It was made in their name, against, their will, but they accepted the 
struggle as the result of principles common to all. 

Slavery had become an idol before which infidels trembled, for its friends 
were powerful and persecuting. The party of traitors sung its praises, 
preached its principles, administered its offerings, and pursued with malice 
and ferocity all who refused to bow with them before its shrine, till every 
protest sank into a mental reservation ; silence confessed the unity of the 
faith, and prudent skeptics did it reverence as they passed, as infidels in 
Spain devoutly bow with the faithful before the sanctuary or the cross. 

The minds of men thus subjugated, the great part watched the hour 
when fear and hate and accident should enable them to force the people 
into revolution. 

These views, long repelled by many, yet sedulously inculcated, made 
the condition and passport to political advancement and everything incon- 
sistent with them, stigmatized as abolition fanaticism, gradually sank in 
the southern mind, pervaded southern religion, governed southern poli- 
tics, rang through the southern press, till finally accepted by most, acqui- 
esced in by all. 

Our fathers, in the presence of a great evil and a great anomaly, 
honesily confessed both, avowed the desire to end both, but confessed 
their inability to see their way to its accomplishment. 

The men of the new light deride their sensitiveness, impeach their 
humanity, proclaim their ignorance of morals, politics and religion, and 
solve the anomaly of slavery amid liberty and religion, by denying the 
humanity of the negro, and invoking the providence of God which created 
him to be a slave and unfit for anything better. 

A new morality, a new history, a new theology, a new ethnology were 
invented for the new empire. 

The new southern ethnology severed the negro from the human race. 
The new southern morality made the holding a negro the highest of 
moral duties. 

The new southern religion made the African slave trade a missionary 

enterprise. 

The new southern theodicy elevated the subjection of the negro to the 
white into the highest manifestation of divine benevolence. 

The new southern political economy demonstrated that a slave works 
better than a free man, and boasted itself the organization of labor which 
socialists vainly strove for in Europe. 

The new southern political philosophy added to Jefferson's enumera- 
tion of inalienable rights that of the negro to a master. 

A power could not be permanent whose foundations were admitted to 
be temporary ; nor safe whose principles were admitted to be wrong ; nor 



LIBRftRY OF CONURESb 

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comfortable when confessed to be immoral ; nor a source of pride when 
the object of moral opprobrium ; nor a source of strength when admitted 
to be a source of weakness. With the aspirations for power came there- 
fore these changes, and we of Maryland have been brought to turn our 
back on every principle our forefathers professed. 

We propose to the people of Maryland a return to the opinions and 
pract.ee of our fathers. Every step removed from their position has led us 
astray, until we have reached the scene of confu.'^ion, distress and desola- 
tion in which the nation now is. 

We have watched the course of the "Conservative" men who now 
support Mr. MaflBt. 

They have, at least, the merit of consistency ; at the beginnin<r of the 
war their action was characterized by timidity, hesitation and dread of 
responsibility, when they should have shown firmness, resolution and 
courage. They talked of opposition to coercion, and proposed to chain 
Maryland to the chariot of Virginia, guided by rebel hands. When the 
President's first call for troops was heard in Maryland timidity prevented 
Its being echoed by our authorities, when it would have been respon<led 
to by the shouts of Maryland's full quota of troops. 

They saw in General Butler's troops at Annapolis enemies and not 
friends, and forbade their landing; and now these same men, in view of 
the ruin which awaits the agricultural interest of a large part of our ter- 
ritory, hesitate to accept a nation's bounty. 

We believe the men of Maryland are capable of directing the energies 
and controlling the destiny of Maryland. We believe they are vastly 
more firm, decided and truly loyal than these timid men have supposed 
and we call upon them in this contest to decide, by the election of Mr' 
Goldsborough, between us and our opponents. 

We do not doubt the result, and expect, freed from the trammels which 
now bind her, to see Maayland, at no distant day, rapidly advancin.. in a 
course of unexampled prosperity with her Sister Free States of the'undi- 
vided and indivisible Republic. 

WM. B. HILL, 
nExVRY W. HOFFMAN, 
HORACE ABBOTT, 
JAMES E. DWLXELLE, 
S. F. STREETER, 
JOHN A. NEEDLES, 
ROBERT TYSON, 
MILTON WHITNEY, 
WM. H. SHIPLEY, ' 
WILLIAM H. BALTZELL. 
Uhcon<ti^io7ial Union State Central Committee 
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